Details

Date

1900

Author

Wright

Contribution

Began to investigate the use of bacterial vaccines, not for prevention, but for cure.

Reference

Foster

Notes

Sir Almroth Wright. His work in 1900 was on the use of heat-killed Staphylococcus for the treatment of recurrent boils. The episode is included here because Wright's account of the work (in 1902) was, according to Foster, scientifically worthless but enormously influential. It launched an era (the pre-antibiotic first half of the 20th Century) of medically and scientifically dubious "vaccine therapy" for a wide variety of infectious diseases. Unlike "serum therapy" (passive transfer of antitoxin) it had no laboratory or clinical validation -- despite its emphasis on measuring the phagocytic and "opsonic" capacity of the patient's serum. The movement created a demand for hospital bacteriologists and strengthened the profession of bacteriology.